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Dessert

Soft Ginger Cake

A moist ginger cake made with brown sugar, molasses, lard, raisins, currants, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Soft Ginger Cake

Why it works: Cinnamon and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,536 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Soft Ginger Cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat your oven to 300°F (150°C).

Mix and bake

  1. In a large bowl, mix together the brown sugar, cinnamon, lard, allspice, molasses, raisins, cold water, currants, baking soda, flour, and ginger until well combined.

  2. Pour the batter into a greased baking pan.

  3. Bake slowly in the preheated oven until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Finish

  1. Frost the cake if desired.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Allspice + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Cinnamon + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Molasses
Adds moisture, sweetness, and a dark color to the cake.
Lard
Adds fat for a tender, moist crumb.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses to help the cake rise and soften.
Light brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture while helping browning.

The step that matters

Bake slowly until a toothpick comes out clean. A low oven bakes the cake gently so the center sets without the outside over-browning or drying. Testing the center with a toothpick shows when the structure has fully set, since the cake can look done on top while still being wet inside.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, cinnamon, allspice, molasses, raisin, flour, ginger):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Orangefits better
  3. Vanillafits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cinnamon, allspice, molasses, raisin, flour, ginger. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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